How quickly were GWR wagons and vans repainted after nationalisation ?

[brian777999]

What would GWR wagons and brake vans have looked like during the early BR period (British Railways and early crest)? Was there an effort to repaint as many wagons as quickly as possible or did they only repaint when a wagon or van came into the workshop for repairs ? For how long could you still see wagons and brake vans marked Great Western ?

[The Johnster]

Piece of string question; quick answer, it depends.

 

Less quick answer, about what it depends on.  The initial priority when the new railway came into being was to sort it all out, which meant renumbering the wagons in BR's number sequence with a 'W' prefix to indicate that they were previously GWR wagons.  The works plates carried the original numbers, and the new numbers fairly quickly painted on with the W prefix to establish ownership and avoid possible confusion with other vehicles with the same or similar numbers from the LMS, LNER, or Southern.  Bear in mind that a number of wartime constructed wagons were to the design of one company (or RCH) for another company, so this sort of confusion was quite possible.  Workers in goods depot were not expected to be knowledgeable about individual company designs, and in general a van was a van and an open was an open as far as they were concerned.

 

This initial effort could be done in depots and yards quite easily and quickly by local C & W staff, and was the first stage.  Livery overall remained the same.  The wagon would, of course, sooner or later, be due for workshopping and be taken in and painted in the new livery.  For a while, with wartime austerity restrictions still in place and paint in short supply, unfitted wagons were simply turned out in plain unpainted wood, with black paint on the steel strapping, but from around the start of 1949 (I believe), paint was allowed.  The new BR liveries which replaced GW slate grey for freight vehicles were a light grey for unfitted vehicles and bauxite for fitted ones; these were a continuation of LMS?LNER joint practice.  The exact shades of grey or bauxite are a matter of debate and may have varied between workshops or even batches within workshops in those days of uncertain supply when they had to use what was available.  My impression of the bauxite is that it was 'less orange' than the LMS/LNER and that the grey was a bit lighter, but there was a lot of variation and overlap even before the wagons discoloured and weathered in service.

 

From then on it was a steady progress that took years.  Wagons often went a long time between overhauls, and some GW liveried vehicles could still be seem in 1960, but they were getting unusual by the mid 50s.  There was an 'Ideal Stocks Committee' which oversaw the production of new wagons and the refurbishment of older ones to a new standard for BR use.  

 

Before 1951, when the new BR designs were introduced, existing orders for wagon from the various workshops were continued to the previous designs, so many GW wagons were built which never carried any other than BR livery, while those repainted or new immediately prior to nationalisation were likely to remain in it for some time.  Ideal Stocks recommended that a standard for general merchandise wagons of a vacuum fitted 10 foot wheelbase with modern brakes and disc wheels; many older wagons that fitted the profile were reconditioned to this standard but would not have carried their pre nationalisation liveries after this.

 

But, of course, this isn't really helping you much; you want to know how many of your wagons should carry GWR livery on a model set in the early BR period.  No precise or definitive answer can be given, but as a very rough and general guideline I would suggest that by 1955, about a half of the wagons would be in BR liveries and the rest in various weathered and battered forms of GW grey, with a few of the new BR designs beginning make a showing.  By 1958, the Ideal Stocks policy had thinned out the older wagons, helped by a fall in traffic, and you would probably have a quarter in dirty GW livery with only one or two sporting spoked wheels.  By 1960 GW livery would be more or less extinct, as would unfitted GW vehicles that had not been refurbished.  The ratio of vans to opens should be altering over time as well, in favour of vans in later periods and hitting about half and half around 1950.

 

A word about white roofs.  Don't have white roofs on vans post war, at all at any time.

 

Some GW vanfits were still in use in general traffic in the 1970s, but the numbers of all freight vehicles were falling rapidly by then.

Edited October 8, 2017 by The Johnster

[71000]

What would GWR wagons and brake vans have looked like during the early BR period (British Railways and early crest)? Was there an effort to repaint as many wagons as quickly as possible or did they only repaint when a wagon or van came into the workshop for repairs ? For how long could you still see wagons and brake vans marked Great Western ?

An extra note in addition to what "The Johnster" has said. Crests early or late were NOT normally found on freight vehicles. 

Edited November 28, 2017 by 71000

[uax6]

And it was not unheard of Pre-grouping wagon liveries to be visible on wagons in BR days. There is a Photo of a MR open in Essery's MR wagons book taken in the 50's with the M and R chalked round to make them easier to see. The wagon seemed to have missed the large LMS livery, and had the wartime small, left-hand LMS livery, thus leaving the MR visible.....

 

Andy G

[brian777999]

Would GWR wagons and brake vans have made an appearance in the Midland areas or would they have been confined to the Western regions ?

[Marshall5]

Unless they were specialized wagons and were marked "return to ..." ex G.W. wagons and vans could be seen anywhere on B.R.  Brake vans, however, didn't venture far off the Western region many being marked "R.U." and were allocated to a specific depot.  As always there were exceptions - I have a photo of a Toad on a short local freight in Lancashire in the early 60's.   I'm sure there are other Forum members who can give a more detailed answer.

Ray.

[BR60103]

Wagons would go where the load was going. Unless there was a reason like a change of gauge.

[jim.snowdon]

Wagons would go where the load was going. Unless there was a reason like a change of gauge.

Exactly, and even before Nationalisation, a great many wagons were in the Common User pool, so would wander all over the country, with no requirement to return them to their "home" railway. The only general exception, pre-BR, would have been brake vans, which would have stayed with the train only as far as the next yard where the train was broken down and re-marshalled.

 

Jim

[TheSignalEngineer]

Would GWR wagons and brake vans have made an appearance in the Midland areas or would they have been confined to the Western regions ?

For Brakes, depends on which part of the Midland. The Birmingham area saw plenty coming from Gloucester in particular.

[Talltim]

I'm sure I read somewhere that single ended brakes like Toads were not as widely travelled under BR as other constituent companies'. Not to say that they wouldn't reach other regions, but only on trains from the WR, rather than being transferred for use elsewhere.

[dpgibbons]

PO Wagons were not part of the big 4 fleets and were taken into a (national?) pool during WW2 so what BR number prefix did they receive - presumably the BR "B"?

[petethemole]

Ex-PO wagons received a 'P' prefix, with some exceptions. Some RCH 5-plank opens from a particular owner were absorbed with 'M' numbers. IIRC there's an explanation somewhere on this site, relating to the Bachmann 5-plank with an M number.

[nigel newling]

Just a quick correction to Johnster's reply. Wagons from the 4 companies retained their company running number but with the prefix W, M, E or S. BR started a new sequence with the prefix B for their builds, even when the build was a direct copy of a company design.

There was a quick "paint job" on the wagons to convert the existing company identities (from the 1936 standard layout) to running number prefixes by painting out the Gs, Ls & Ss, Ns and Rs on the wagon sides, with a similar reduction on the registration plates. This change was achieved within a few months of nationalisation. Full repaints to grey or bauxite took quite a lot longer. 

[jim.snowdon]

Just a quick correction to Johnster's reply. Wagons from the 4 companies retained their company running number but with the prefix W, M, E or S. BR started a new sequence with the prefix B for their builds, even when the build was a direct copy of a company design.

There was a quick "paint job" on the wagons to convert the existing company identities (from the 1936 standard layout) to running number prefixes by painting out the Gs, Ls & Ss, Ns and Rs on the wagon sides, with a similar reduction on the registration plates. This change was achieved within a few months of nationalisation. Full repaints to grey or bauxite took quite a lot longer. 

From a quick survey of photographs in the late Geoff Gamble's books, I think it would be fairer to say that the majority of pre-BR wagons were given prefixed numbers within two years of nationalisation. BR inherited nearly 1.25 million wagons on January 1st 1948, and it would have taken some time to process all of these without putting excessive resource into the task. Since the numbers remained unaltered, there would not have been a huge urgency, as clearly any clerk recording an un-prefixed number could easily work out whether to add E, M, S or W from the existing livery.

 

Jim

[The Johnster]

I'm sure I read somewhere that single ended brakes like Toads were not as widely travelled under BR as other constituent companies'. Not to say that they wouldn't reach other regions, but only on trains from the WR, rather than being transferred for use elsewhere.

 

 

There is quite a bit about this on the various toad threads.  GW toads were not generally liked by other railways as they only had a single balcony (imagine having to go outside the cabin on a dirty night to access the brake with coal dust blowing around your ears at 40 odd mph); obviously, the GW men thought that they were superior in every possible way to lesser railways' offerings.  Thus they tended to be be sent back to the GW, and later the WR, fairly promptly when they turned up elsewhere.  Many were R.U. (Restricted Use) anyway because that is how the GW and WR worked for many years.

[The Johnster]

Yes

 

Just a quick correction to Johnster's reply. Wagons from the 4 companies retained their company running number but with the prefix W, M, E or S. BR started a new sequence with the prefix B for their builds, even when the build was a direct copy of a company design.

There was a quick "paint job" on the wagons to convert the existing company identities (from the 1936 standard layout) to running number prefixes by painting out the Gs, Ls & Ss, Ns and Rs on the wagon sides, with a similar reduction on the registration plates. This change was achieved within a few months of nationalisation. Full repaints to grey or bauxite took quite a lot longer. 

 

Just a quick correction to Johnster's reply. Wagons from the 4 companies retained their company running number but with the prefix W, M, E or S. BR started a new sequence with the prefix B for their builds, even when the build was a direct copy of a company design.

There was a quick "paint job" on the wagons to convert the existing company identities (from the 1936 standard layout) to running number prefixes by painting out the Gs, Ls & Ss, Ns and Rs on the wagon sides, with a similar reduction on the registration plates. This change was achieved within a few months of nationalisation. Full repaints to grey or bauxite took quite a lot longer. 

 

Yes, that's right.  Ex private owner (XPO) wagons were given a P prefix.  Sorry, should have made that clearer!

Edited October 11, 2017 by The Johnster

[The Johnster]

It is possible that very old liveries, such as the pre-grouping MR wagon mentioned above, may have been liveries exposed by wear on newer liveries that had worn entirely off rather than unrepainted survivals, but then on the other hand, wagon neglect was common...